credentials can often be linked into a chain. The most typical starting point for such a chain is a birth certificate. While the details of the laws may vary from state to state, a general requirement mandates the birth of a child be recorded with a state’s Bureau of Vital Statistics. At the completion of this act of enrollment, a birth certificate is issued. This credential lists the time and location of birth along with the names of the parents as well as that of the infant. A certified authority, typically the physician or midwife that aided in the birth, signs it. An attestation by a distinguished authority, distinguished through a registration or certification process through the state, elicits a high level of trust because it entails a transaction that is an official signature operation, for which the consequences of fraud are greater than might be the case for a more common individual. The parents must subsequently register the birth of an infant born outside of a hospital or other official setting. As part of this registration, a third-party witness must attest to the birth of the child. This attestation must be done in front of a Notary Public in order, again, to apply the force of law to the act of affirmation.

Since its inception, the act of registering a birth and of subsequently obtaining a birth certificate has been viewed as a rather innocuous act. This was at least partially due to the fact that the birth of a child typically occurred within some type of social context. This is simply recognition of the evolutionary status of the family. When there are witnesses to the expectation of a birth and its subsequent occurrence, there is an undercurrent of policy mechanisms that are subsequently fulfilled through societal action, and these mechanisms tend toward the establishment of identity for the infant growing to the child who subsequently attains adulthood. Historically, there was no mechanism routinely used to provide a trusted linkage between a person and the birth certificate credential; the linkage was usually done simply by the name on the certificate. Within a relatively small social group, a name is a moderately effective way to establish identity. Through prolonged association, the members of a small group form effective, albeit ill-defined biometric authentication procedures based at least to some extent on facial recognition, voice recognition and physical mannerisms. Within such a group, it is difficult for a person’s identity to be fraudulently adopted by another person. In this type of environment, if a person consistently uses the same name throughout the progression of life, then the birth certificate forms a moderately reliable credential attesting to the start of that life. Subsequent credentials gain some level of trustworthiness by tracking back to a valid birth certificate. Perhaps one of the more profound such credentials that has gained increasing relevance over the last few decades is the social security number.

A significant aspect of the dominant policy infrastructure in the United States is that of taxation. As the Supreme Court decision in McCulloch versus Maryland alluded, “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.” The current policy purveyors for this infrastructure, that is the United States Congress and the President, generally seek to support certain aspects of family grouping. Consequently, considerations related to having and rearing children find their way into the tax codes. For the purposes of taxation, a child might be viewed as both a liability and an asset, and as such must be duly reported on a family’s tax return. Relatively recent changes to the tax codes require a more trustworthy authentication of the existence, and hence identity of children than is accomplished by simply listing their names on the tax return. Therefore, there is now a requirement that a child be identified by a social security number. Obtaining this number is generally dependent on the proper registration of the child’s birth; hence, a birth certificate is critical to obtaining a number. With the issuance of a social security number, a person now has two credentials of some substance that can be used to authenticate identity in future transactions. If one considers the subsequent attainment of school graduation diplomas, military service records and perhaps the existence of records of legal sanctions, that is, a criminal record, then it is clear that this chain of documents related to identity can grow. Therefore, in many instances simply

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